


The Long Way Home

by NeoVenus22



Category: Stargate SG-1
Genre: Alternate Reality, Alternate Universe, Episode: s10e13 The Road Not Taken, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-03-13
Updated: 2010-03-13
Packaged: 2017-10-07 22:52:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,544
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/70071
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NeoVenus22/pseuds/NeoVenus22
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The bonds of friendship are built, rebuilt, stretched, and broken. Four potential paths on a road not taken.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Long Way Home

**Author's Note:**

> Spoilers: 10x13, 'The Road Not Taken'  
> Lyrical interludes from "Creatures (For A While)" by 311.

** _the mixture watered down and now a pointless display_ **

Sam's got a few hours to kill yet before the flight back to Colorado, so she acts on Major Lorne's intel, heading down to the cells of Area 51. Vala languishes as best she can in the rough-hewn chair, but she perks up when she sees Sam. "Major Carter! I've seen you on the news." She points out of the bars and adds in a stage whisper, "He lets me watch."

Sam glances over at the impassive guard, who refuses to acknowledge this.

Vala looks a little messier than Sam's used to; gone are the excessive amounts of Earth makeup she's always 'experimenting' with, and her leather outfit looks dull and stretched. She's obviously trying not to let her weariness show. Sam can respect that. "Hi, Vala."

Vala lifts her brows in part surprise and part pride. "Have they told you about me?"

"Not exactly."

"Well, have you come to release me? Because, you know, the so-called 'thrills' of your planet have lost their appeal."

Sam purses, pained. "I don't have that authority, sorry."

"Then what?" Vala gets up, saunters over the bars, and sticks one slender hand through to pat at Sam's collar. The guard tenses, torn between wanting to keep the prisoner in her place and wanting to see how this plays out.

Sam deflects her gently. "I just wanted to... see how you were doing."

Vala pouts and flounces backwards, never once losing her dignity. "Fine, as you can see. I have all the mediocre meals a girl can hope for. And the view's not half-bad, either." She wiggles her fingers at the guard, who turns forward with a stony expression, but his neck is tomato red.

"I know this isn't very fair," Sam offers apologetically. With the threat from the Goa'uld and now from the Ori eliminated (for the time being), there's relative peace and there's no reason to keep her. She's no longer useful for information, if she ever was, and she must be annoying the hell out of all of them. "I'm really sorry about all of it."

Vala considers this for a moment, then speaks with utter sobriety. Sam has been privy to only a few of these moments from Vala, and they stun her every time. "Don't be," the woman says seriously. "You're only looking out for your own, after all."

 

** _it's something one won't understand unless they're in it with me_ **

When she's finally allowed to go off-base, Major Lorne drives her 'home.' Sam doesn't even recognize the apartment; apparently she sold her house when she got married. There are no parks. The neighbors still eye her wearily, but it's for an entirely different reason. She prickles with discomfort, but Lorne puts his hand on her back and guides her through the motions of letting herself in. Trying to pretend she's not putting an unfamiliar key in an unfamiliar lock. Trying to pretend her fingers don't stumble. Trying to pretend she's this Major Carter that's now revered.

"You want some coffee?" she asks. "I'm sure I can find... something." She shrugs helplessly and he laughs in understanding.

"I think after the week we've all had, we could use something harder."

What disturbs her is that she finds things in the kitchenette exactly where she'd find them in her own kitchen. Everything is different about these two universes, but her storage methods are the same. She pops the cap off a beer and passes it to him. They sit on opposite ends of a couch she doesn't recognize. The beer is flat.

She likes the way he calls her 'Sam', likes that they seem to have developed a friendship and a rapport, even though in her world, she barely knows him at all. She's grateful he's making the transition so well from his Sam to her, trying to kindle a new friendship even when things sort of suck. She's grateful; he's the only one who's been treating her like an actual human being.

They chat. She asks idle questions, trying to find the fork where their universes diverged. It's not a terribly serious pursuit, she's too tired to be articulate or... well, anything, really... so they lapse into silence. Lorne twirls his bottle.

"So. I'm going to go. The building is under surveillance, just in case. You can have a horde of Marines at the push of a button." There's a long pause. "Unless you rather I stayed and kept you company."

She deflates with relief that she didn't have to ask. "If you don't mind?"

"Sure thing," he says, just like that. She thinks not everything about this universe is horrible.

 

** _I land on Earth's hard face, no legs could keep that pace_ **

It's the ultimate in clichés: she's in the middle of a hot shower (much needed, by the way) when the phone jangles. It would only figure that the caller was someone who abhorred clichés and would groan at the situation.

She steps out, hastily drips-dry on the bathroom tile, and dashes into the living room. Even for all of her hurry, she still manages to hesitate before she can actually answer the phone. It's the landline, not the secure cell phone they'd bought just for her. Picking up the phone, trying to deter requests for interviews, all seems like too much, but it's possible it's someone from the lab. Maybe they'd tried the cell and she hadn't answered. Either way, the blinking red light on the machine would only haunt her, so she grabs at the receiver before the phone has a chance to switch over.

"Hello?"

"Carter."

For a few heartbeats, she floods with relief at the sound of Jack's voice. Until reality kicks in, and she realizes she can't hold a conversation with this man. He's not her Jack, she's not his Sam. The SGC briefed her on all the necessary bits for playing the Major Carter of the US Air Force to the press, but she doesn't know the first thing about this Carter's personal life outside of what little Lorne leaked. She can't play this role.

There's an aching beat of silence, as she tries to figure out what to say. Jack solves that problem, muttering, "Saw you on the news." She's starting to realize the other thing that's wrong about this conversation. He might be drunk, or at least working towards it. It doesn't bode well.

"You looked good. For a ventriloquist dummy." He coughs. "How's _Rodney_?" The irritable twist he puts on the name answers some of her questions, but asks hundreds more.

"He's fine, sir," she says automatically.

"Don't, Carter."

She's not entirely convinced she understands. With every word, and there's only been a few, she's beginning to lose her grip on this already loose facade. "Sir?"

"I _said_—" He sighs. She doesn't know how this conversation already managed to reach its breaking point. "Oh, never mind." And then he hangs up.

Sam stands, dripping.

 

** _I'm not used to it, you'd think I'd be by now_ **

She hasn't been back for twenty-four hours when Cameron drops by her lab and offers to drive her home. She's had to go through debriefings, decontaminations, all the usual rundown, plus the added bonus of awkward conversation with her teammates. Through all of it, she's infused with energy, running on a hamster loop of increasingly dark memories. She's beginning to understand what Daniel went through when he first found the Quantum Mirror. The helplessness of seeing things she maybe wasn't supposed to see, of constant comparison, and now of trying to put that other world to rest in her mind.

She's staring helplessly at a blank piece of paper, trying to remember just what she was attempting to calculate, when Cameron bangs out a rhythm on the door frame. "No sign. Force field?"

"You're safe," she assures him.

"Relatively speaking. That's your thinking face. Everything okay?"

She twitches a reflexive smile. "Yeah. Just a little tired." And she is. With Cameron's sudden appearance, the remainder of the adrenaline cuts off and she's left facing a big crash.

"Good. You should be. You never get tired, Sam, and it worries the hell outta me. C'mon. I'm gonna drive you home."

It feels like she hasn't seen Cameron smile in forever, and she all but flings herself at him, hugging him tightly. Cameron is never one to back down from either a challenge or a hug, so he squeezes her back just as tightly. They're both trying to reassure themselves of the other's solidity, she reflects, and it's almost a full minute before he makes a noise in the back of his throat indicating she's cutting off circulation.

When she lets him go, he's instantly reading her face for clues. "What, was I dead or something? In that wacky other universe?"

The truth hurts too much to think about, how she sat in the back of the limo and rode back to the alternate SGC with tears rolling down her face. "Yeah," she lies. Although, in a way, he was. His spirit was squashed, his humor was melancholy at best, and he was barely shades of any Cameron Mitchell she might recognize. "I missed you," she adds. That one's not a lie.


End file.
